


Tea With Cinnamon

by Somekindofcontraption



Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age II
Genre: Angst, F/M, Fluff, Fluff and Angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-29
Updated: 2015-10-29
Packaged: 2018-04-28 19:03:11
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,142
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5102168
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Somekindofcontraption/pseuds/Somekindofcontraption
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"Sleeping in was an indulgence Justice never allowed Anders, but he always remembered Hawke come morning. The incorrigible healer, who often forgot to eat and so rarely got a full night’s sleep, always remembered to show his love with a dash of cinnamon and a honeyed spoon.</p><p>The cup of tea was a reminder that she was loved, and Anders never forgot her even when he began to forget himself."</p><p>Marian loses just about everything; the little things keep her grounded.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Tea With Cinnamon

There was so little in this world that Marian wanted.

When she and Carver rushed to Lothering, her only thought was to keep her family safe. Everything after Lothering was a blur; Leandra crying over Bethany’s crushed body, Aveline’s dying husband, waves of darkspawn.

When Flemeth arrived, Hawke knew that she would do anything it took to make a home for her family. With Kirkwall as their destination, the trip by sea was rocky, to say the least, but when they arrived Hawke was quick to commit herself to a year of work if it meant all of them could get into the city.

Gamlen’s house was not what she had expected, but it was something.

After the deep roads expedition, the mansion in Hightown became everything she’d ever dreamed and more, but like most things in her life, came at great cost. It seemed too big with only her mother and mabari to live in it.

But time pushed on, and while Leandra would probably never forgive Marian for giving her only son to the Grey Wardens, Hawke was happy that he lived at all. A hard life was better than the fate faced by Bethany.

With Bodahn and Sandal added to the mix, and visits from her growing group of friends, the great manse began to feel like a home she could love; but it wasn’t until the first time she took Anders to bed with her that she truly felt she’d found what she was looking for.

Marian spent the night with her limbs tangled in his. Anders didn’t stay, rising early to attend to his clinic before the sun had even begun to rise. She was disappointed, but downstairs in her kitchen she found a token of his affection; a teacup, sprinkled with cinnamon, with a spoon of honey balanced on the top.

On her hearth was a teapot full of hot tea, and in her heart she knew she’d loved him for much longer than she could admit, even to herself.

When he came to her that evening, they didn’t even make it past the foyer, and she thanked the Maker that the rest of the household was already asleep.

* * *

When her mother passed away, she held the broken body in her arms for long after the life had left Leandra, making promises to her mother that were now impossible to keep.

I’ll always protect you, I’ll always be there.

Then a plea, a desperate _don’t leave me._

Later she sat alone on the edge of her bed, eyes stinging and dry, staring into empty space. Anders came in then with a tea tray, which he set carefully on the bedside table before taking a seat next to her.

Her tremulous calm was scraped away by one look at the spoon glinting in the firelight. Sobs wracked her body as Hawke clutched for Anders’ dusty, worn out overcoat, scrabbling for purchase as if he was in the only thing in the world holding her to it. 

In that moment, he might have been, and when they made love the tea set rocked off of the bedside table. The teacup shattered, the spoon stuck to the carpet, and the smell lingered in the room for weeks afterward, reminding her that all that was left now was to endure.

* * *

Sleeping in was an indulgence Justice never allowed Anders, but he always remembered Hawke come morning.The incorrigible healer, who often forgot to eat and so rarely got a full night’s sleep, always remembered to show his love with a dash of cinnamon and a honeyed spoon.

The cup of tea was a reminder that she was loved, and Anders never forgot her even when he began to forget himself.

* * *

There came stretches, weeks at a time, where Marian didn’t see him. Anders’ manifesto began to supersede even the needs of his patients, who found it more and more difficult to contact him.

They fought more often, and the insults dug deeper. Her sarcastic jabs chipped away at him, drove him further away; he broke her heart with his despondence. Every day still, he left her the cup of tea and cinnamon. The minute gesture so impactful, as if apologizing in a way for what was to come.

Anders had warned her, after all. But she loved him, and that was enough reason to stay.

By the time Anders came to her with a way to separate him from Justice, she was desperate. As she gathered the ingredients - sela patrae, drakestone - she knew that the fade spirit, corrupted to Vengeance, had taken hold. That it played on her hopes for a normal life in order to achieve its end.

Marian could never have imagined what that meant.

* * *

The air was choked out of Kirkwall by a cloud of smoke.

The acrid stench of blood was heavy all around them as Marian tried desperately to reconcile the Anders she loved with the husk of a man sitting on a box just a few feet away from her. Meredith walked off, satisfied that the Champion of Kirkwall had failed so thoroughly. Orsino stared at the horizon as if he’d already resigned himself to death. Somewhere behind her Sebastian was shouting for justice; that particular plea fell on deaf ears.

There was no Justice here, not anymore.

“I might have understood if you’d only told me,” Marian whispered to the mess of blonde hair. She approached Anders on shaky legs, the blood rushing past her ears and drowning out the chaos around her. She thumbed the hilt of the knife at her belt, aware that everyone watching expected her to act, but unsure how to do what was necessary, unaware of what that even meant anymore.

“I wanted to tell you, but…” Anders said, eyes fixed on the flaming rubble. “The world needs to see this. I don’t regret it, even if it means paying for my life.”

Marian unsheathed the dagger, the wreckage reflected in the blade.

 _What about me?_ she didn’t ask. _What about us?_

Later Marian will regret the moment where she believed that she could do it. The next moment she remembered the smell of fresh tea, a honeyed spoon, the only thing she had left; she made a selfish decision, if only to chase the happiness she thought she’d find in Kirkwall.

“Fight for the mages. Fight for _me_ ,” she says instead.

“Damn right I will. I didn’t think you’d…” He wavers. “Damn right I will.”

Thedas caught fire in the wake of what they’d done, but Marian remembers a simple thing, something that Anders told her before the battle began.

“Ten years, a hundred years from now, someone like me will love someone like you, and there will be no templars to tear them apart.”

Marian still isn’t sure that she believes it; somehow it doesn’t matter.

 

**Author's Note:**

> This one has been in the works for a while. Inspired in part by the song "Tea With Cinnamon" by Katzenjammer. Enjoy!


End file.
